Badge 56 - Connect with Your Tribe

This is a fantastic badge about making traditions with the people who mean the most to you. I have a plethora of examples as I am one who loves tradition. My examples ranged from TGIF gatherings with my friends to more traditional holiday family activities. The one I decided to focus on is a family tradition: making Kørv. It's a family recipe from my maternal grandparents (Swedish side - see Grandma Lu in the photo to the right).

We used to make Kørv every Thanksgiving and then we'd eat it through the Christmas holiday season. It's a potato sausage with little more than beef, pork, onion, potato and a little salt and pepper. This tradition has included my maternal grandparents, occasionally my paternal grandparents, my parents, brother, sister-in-law and myself. We even have matching aprons. We've had to skip a couple of years due to conflicting schedules now that we don't all live in the same house, but this year we were able to get together as a group and make it. It turned out great and with a little mug of Glüg to help wash it down we were all very happy campers. :-)

What are your family traditions?

Updates on Badges 31 and 16

Well the exercise badge took a little time off during the holidays, but I'm back on schedule starting today January 4. Look for more updates as I progress.

I updated my website and included links to my "other" sites under my Biography. It's a start. I wouldn't say I've competed this one quite yet, but it's moving in the right direction. There are just so many great online tools out there and every time I start to consolidate I get sucked into something else like Glogster. Check it out if you have time. :-)

Badge 16 - Go World Wide

This is a badge about building a website. Ok, well I've done that (repeatedly) so my spin on this badge is to revamp my main website and connect all of my other websites and organize my online persona.

To start with I'm collecting my websites - obnoxious isn't it.

http://www.hamres.com
http://www.techiesteaching.com (this was an attempt at playing with Drupal)
http://web.me.com/mhamre/Site/Welcome.html
http://techiesteaching.blogspot.com
http://techiesteaching.pbwiki.com
http://midwestgirlsguide.blogspot.com/
http://lvusdtosa.blogspot.com/
http://welovethecullens.wordpress.com

Plus other social networking sites -
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maryannhamre
http://www.myspace.com/serenitymine
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Ann/721335847
http://www.twitter.com/mhamre

Photo Posting Sites
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mahamre/

(I'm afraid there may be more later...)

Starting Badge 31

I picked Badge 31: Exercise your Options because I've let fitness go for other priorities - school, work, eating :-) Time to prioritize and work on fitness goals. The badge recommends 5-6 days of 30 min ~ cardio, 2 days of 15-20 min ~ strength training, 2 days of 5-10 min ~ stretching. This will be an ongoing badge. Any suggestions on determining when I "get" my badge?

Cardio = ?
Strength = ?
Stretching = touching my toes (without bending at my knees)

The Badges

Ok, so I went through the book to figure out which badges I had already completed and I decided that even if I had "completed" the badge I need to do something intentionally above and beyond to actually get the badge. These are the badges I'll be demonstrating:
1) Connect with your Tribe (Family Rituals)
2) Trace Your Roots (Genealogy)
3) Get Down to the Knitty-Gritty (Knitting)
4) Take a (Really Good) Picture (Photography)
5) Go World Wide (Building a Web Page)
6) Roam Where You Want to (Travel)
7) Find Your Money (Budgeting)
8) Speak Geek (Computer Care)
9)Share What You Know (Teaching)
10)Get Well Read (Book Lover)
11)Know Your Best Cellars (Wine Appreciation)
12)Go Back to School (Continuing Your Education)
13)Organize It (Organizing)

There are 60 badges in all. Two down 58 to go!

Badge 19 - bead it

I had a fabulous time with Nancy, Kim, Susan, Betsy, and Kelly at Friday's Beads and Books party. Everyone can cross off the Beading Badge. I would have liked to have made copies of every project created that night. Betsy's were especially beautiful and I was kicking myself for not taking pictures of everyone's ideas!

The book exchange went well also. I'm excited to start Hunger Games. It will be the highlight of my flight home on Saturday.

Sent the Merit Badge book off with Kim - gotta keep spreading the word! :-) Come on girls. Time to start collecting those badges.

Dreams Coming True

So I got my first online teaching job with California Virtual Academy. I will be teaching high school Web Design and I can't wait! My official start date is Monday. I guess it's time to look for a new badge. :-)